BARCELONA ’92 OLYMPICS / DAY 10 : Heads-Up Volleyball Leads to U.S. Upset

For the United States men’s Olympic volleyball team, Monday night’s match was a big hairy deal.

After a week at the Olympics of being more a freak show than anything else, the U.S. men finally earned some attention for something other than their Yul Brynner look.

They upset Italy, the world champion, in four highly competitive games, and in the process started to look like a team that could bring a third consecutive gold medal to the United States. The scores were 9-15, 16-14, 15-11, 15-13, and the dramatic match had many in the packed house of 6,300 in the hot and sweaty Palau Municipal d’Esportes up and down in their seats.

They didn’t seem to know, or care, that the outcome of the match had little bearing on the medal round, which starts Wednesday and includes the top eight teams from the two starting pools of six each.

When Spain won the first two games of its match before the United States-Italy match, it meant that the United States had finished second to Italy in the pool, no matter what happened when the teams played later. It also meant that the United States would open against the Commonwealth of Independent States, which finished third in the other pool.

Nor did the Italians or Americans seem to care that the match was for nothing more than pride, as they battled for every point, diving all over the arena floor.

“One thing I especially liked about tonight was that we gave the crowd a great show, especially the Americans who were here,” said Steve Timmons, U.S. veteran.

Actually, these players have given the entire Olympic world a great show, ever since they had a five-game victory over Japan reversed more than a week ago after an officiating controversy and, in a show of team unity, shaved their heads. While they were barely winning their ensuing matches, they were also inspiring hair jokes and bald one-liners all over the world.

“This has been unbelievable,” Timmons said. “We’ve got people back home, and fans all over the country, shaving their heads. And those that don’t do that send us letters. We even have T-shirts.”

Ah, the commercial.

Timmons, who played on the gold-medal teams in 1984 and ‘88, owns a beachwear company called Redsand Volleyball. In the O of the word Volleyball is his long-time trademark, his crewcut red hair. But in the team shave-in, off went the red crewcut and the trademark. Now, Timmons reports, the new T-shirt has a different head in the O, the head of a shaved Timmons.

“We just took a picture of how I looked, sent it to my guy by fax, and he made it work,” Timmons said. “We’ve got some here already, but only 18 of them for now. We’ll get more.”

What a surprise. Timmons actually got to rest his soon-to-be-even-more-famous noggin, not to mention the rest of his body, for much of the late stages of the match, as Coach Fred Sturm got some valuable experience for players such as Brent Hilliard and Dan Greenbaum. He also got to test Bryan Ivie’s injured right knee.

Greenbaum took over for setter Jeff Stork and performed well, and Hilliard had 20 kills, a service ace and a block. But perhaps most gratifying for the U.S. men was the return of Ivie, the 6-foot-7 middle blocker from Manhattan Beach, a veteran star. He injured his knee in the opening game against Japan when he bent down to wipe the floor and felt the knee freeze when he straightened.

He hadn’t played again until he got into the fray with his team down a game and trailing in the second, 8-5. He not only stayed in most of the rest of the way, while Sturm rested Timmons and Stork for the three-game assault on the gold medal, but he also had 10 kills.

“I really didn’t think I would be able to play when I got up this morning,” Ivie said. “In fact, I was so sure I wouldn’t that I didn’t even bring my ankle braces and I only had one jersey here with me. But once I warmed up, I felt pretty good and I told Fred that I thought I could go if he needed me.”

The match against Italy had some special meaning to Ivie, because he was one of only three current U.S. national team members on the 1990 team in the World Championships at Brasilia, where Italy won and became the team to beat in Barcelona. Also on that outmanned U.S. team were Scott Fortune and Bob Samuelson, who all certainly remember finishing 13th.

Since then, many Olympic veterans, such as Stork and Timmons and Doug Partie and Bob Ctvrtlik, have returned for a shot at gold No. 3, and Sturm has taken over as coach. So, the focus seems to finally be shifting from the shaved heads to the talented bodies.

But not completely.

In the postmatch news conference, a German broadcaster stepped forward to ask a question and, prefacing it by saying that he knew nothing about volleyball and was sent to ask just one question, asked setter Fabio Vullo of Italy: “Do you think the Americans play better with all their hair or without it?”

Vullo said they were great both ways, and the German broadcaster shuffled off, perhaps looking for one of Timmons’ T-shirts.